Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - You Can't Always Get What You Want
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purplepolecat
 Posts: 130 |
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http://www.japanfiles.com/ are pretty good. $1/track, $10/album, totally legit.
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Optitron
 Posts: 46 |
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I actually considered adding Tsubasa to my list, but chose not to because it employs a plot device that seems to be popular in Nihon (Japan, though I like that name since it has the word "book" in it) but always aggravates me to no end when I come across it. The way this plot device plays out is the two characters have discovered through the course of the book's events that they care for each other deeply, but one has this unfinished quest that (s)he has to go on, so they say their farewells and promise to meet each other again someday before the character leaves to begin his journey... and that's it, the story ends right there. I understand how that can be a proper ending if done correctly, but it never feels like an ending to me. It feels like you're setting up for a sequel that will never happen. The characters of Tsubasa suffered so much to get where they did by that book's conclusion. Why can't they just have their happily ever after. I'm not saying every couple deserves a happy ending, but when spoiler[one of you gouged out your own eye and the other one was run through the heart by your love's sword] I think you deserve a little R&R together. Other anime guilty of this are Escaflowne, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, FMA Brotherhood (saying that is painful), and (so painful, not sure I can say it) Princess Mononoke (forgive me, Miyazaki-sensei!). I should also point out that Cardcaptor Sakura has the exact same thing happen, except spoiler[Shaoran actually comes back for the very end.] Anyway, I didn't think Tsubasa was a *insert colorful expletive here*. You just have to read it very carefully (or in my case several times  ) to get everything that's going on. Reading the translator's notes at the end of the books, it's clear that this series suffers from an inability to forsee the plot twists of later events. I remember several instances where the translator apologized for something that was mistranslated in a previous volume when the error became apparent in light of some new development. All these little mistranslations can build up to a truly epic level of confusion, especially in a series of this length and weight. As a result, it is a series that is better read all at once rather than in installments.
*whew* Hope that wasn't too long winded. Since many people are responding to last weeks Answerfans question, I guess I'll throw in my two cents. I usually avoid unfinished series like the plague, but I do remember after watching ROD: the TV Series feeling that there were a lot of unresolved plot threads that could be used as the basis of a new season (or at least an OVA). Also, it's not really unfinished, but I would love to see OVAs for the Herb and Saffron story arcs of Ranma 1/2. I can't help but feel that those two story arcs would just come alive if animated properly, and it would be nice for the anime to finally have a comparable ending to the manga. (incidentally, I've seen a lot of people say that Ramna 1/2 doesn't have a proper ending, even in the manga. My response is that a series as chaotic as Ranma 1/2 could never have an ending that wasn't just as chaotic as the series itself. A chaotic series deserves a chaotic ending.) Oh, and since Sunrise failed to make it painfully clear what happened at the end, we need a new season of Cowboy Bebop where Spike comes back as a zombie and the Bebop crew has to hunt him down. It would be stupid and pointless and written for the sole purpose of taking our money... and I guarantee everyone on this board would buy it anyway. |
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Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
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Excited by the 3DS trailers when I saw them on a 3DS. Total eye candy that I wouldn't mind playing. Like many of the Nintendo franchises, so I might go for a 3DS first.
Vita, I like some of the games I saw, but not as many as 3DS. But they were still great nonetheless. Once I have a certain amount of games I want, I'll go for it. E3 was alright for me. Not extreme excite levels, but still good. Looking forward to new trailers and information of the games I want. |
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rabrek
 Posts: 188 |
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Ooooo I just wanna pinch your downy little cheeks. So cute! On other forums I travel, the consensus is that 99.5% of the population own mega-size HD TVs with 5.1 setups, landlines are 100% obsolete now that everyone has a cell phone, physical books are deader than dead, and that hybrid cars are about to break big. Plus this CD thing. It is to chuckle indulgently. My local indie chain has no trouble making a profit from the sale of physical CDs and DVDs, and when I shop there, there's almost always a line. CDs are dead to you and your circle, but there are plenty of people who like physical media. Amazon sells vinyl, and that's been dead since before the dinosaurs. A little perspective, please. kiss kiss, love love bye |
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vanfanel
 Posts: 1242 |
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Occult Academy was everything I did not want in an anime original project, because it was ticking off the checkboxes of light novel/manga cliches. Why make a big deal about it being an original work if it's indistinguishable from series that do originate from the manga shop? I never saw either of the other Anime no Chikara shows, because (ironically enough) I live in Japan, and they never aired in my part of the country. Only the big cities get everything.
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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What, spoiler[so foreshadowing Spike's death practically every episode and then having his abdomen sliced open and him falling down surrounded by guards who will shoot him dead if he somehow manages to recover WASN'T painfully clear? Seriously, I couldn't care less if Watanabe said it was ambiguous just so fans would get off his back about it, because saying that ending was ambiguous makes about as much sense as George Lucas saying it's ambiguous if Vader was actually Luke's father.] |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Rumors about the death of CD has been highly exaggerated, certainly you don't see as many people that are as hardcore as me, still carrying around a CD Walkman and a CD case, but, for a "dead" format, a lot of music, electronic, and department stores still seem to sell them and I don't think they're doing it out of a sense of charity. Certainly, many bricks-and-mortar music stores have closed in the past decade, but enough stores still sell CD's to indicate that CD is still a viable format, even if it's more "niche" than it used to be. |
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Annf
Posts: 578 |
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The Japanese internet stream for SoRaNoWoTo was on http://id.ani.tv/ Night Raid was on http://www.b-ch.com/ |
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poonk
 Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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All this talk about how "no one buys CDs anymore" is somewhat amusing as I just ordered a couple CDs from YesAsia a few days ago. Could I download these from nefarious sources? Quite easily (in fact, I still might if only so I can listen to them before my package arrives and to not have to bother ripping them to mp3 myself). So why actually buy the discs, especially considering the crazy prices on Japanese releases? I suppose I fall in with the old(er)school crowd in that I really like being able to hold, in-hand, something I love. And in the case of YesAsia, they seem to know how painful those prices can be and they'll throw in a free random gashapon with qualifying orders (me, I opted for a Hetalia keychain this time). That takes some of the sting out, especially if you find a gashapon from a series you like.
P.S. Just as a tip, since YesAsia also carries Korean/Chinese albums (which are priced nearer to U.S. prices, if not a bit less), for some Japanese albums if you're willing to wait a few months an "Overseas" edition, licensed for the non-Japanese market, will come out. It's pretty much the same as the Japanese release except, for example, the Korean release will include a separate insert with the lyrics/album credits in Hangul. This only applies to full albums though. The price difference between Japanese/Korean singles isn't as great, usually only a few dollars). Last edited by poonk on Sat Jun 11, 2011 2:21 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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These are light novels made aware to a western audience. Chances are there are TONS in Japan. We just don't realize it because either the anime or the novel never made it here, or the anime is so old now we don't really care. Other random anime series (or movies) I can think of off the top of my head based off light novels that finished along with the books: The Irresponsible Captain Tylor Good Witch of the West Vampire Hunter D Slayers Orphen Read or Die Banner of the Stars Welcome to the NHK Oreimo Kino's Journey Maria-Sama ga Miteru Scrapped Princess Kyo Kara Maoh! Trinity Blood Course I guess you can argue if all these were "finished" - meaning did the anime give them open endings or did they have the same ending as the book series |
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Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3011 |
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I'm fairly certain both of these are unfinished. If wikipedia can be trusted, there are 4 Banner of the Stars books, of which only the first 3 were adapted into anime. (And only the first two officially released in the US, though I'd expect fansubs for the 3rd one can be found.) Also, I don't think the Banner of the Stars books are light novels. As for Slayers, that's a bit more confusing. Wikipedia doesn't have detailed info, but I remember trying to find out more details regarding the light novels a while back, and uncovered some info on other sites. Assuming my memory is correct, the first 8 (of 15) Light novels were used as the basis for Slayers and Slayers Next. Slayers Try was anime original. Slayers Revolution and Evolution-R were to an extent anime original, but also incorperated elements of the light novels, including some elements that were actually from the first 8 books, but got left out of the first two anime seasons. But the final 7 light novels have certainly not been adapted in their entirety. And to add insult to this, only the first 8 (in other words, the ones that have been adapted to anime) were ever released in English by Tokyopop. |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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What's being insulted? But anyway, people going on about all these light novel anime adaptions... I don't know about you, but just about EVERY light novel I have ever read that also had an anime adaption - the anime adaption takes serious liberties, much like how they do with manga, so much to the point the anime goes their own way and makes it impossible to follow the light novel series anymore. Some of us complaining about this stuff can't even tell because we don't have the series going that far, but I can tell you from what I have read that Scrapped Princess, Good Witch From the West, Spice and Wolf, Full Metal Panic, Vampire Hunter D, Moribito, Slayers, Kino's Journey, etc - DO NOT FOLLOW THE BOOKS. They're as accurate as most movie adaptions of American comic books. So do I care that the majority of those anime based off light novels never officially finish like the book? I care for it about as much as I cared about the new X-Men First Class movie being accurate to the source material - I didn't care at all, but it didn't make me like the series any less. Was the Slayers done? It felt complete enough for me. Do I care that it didn't follow the books? Not one bit. And if it suddenly decided to follow the books to end like the book it'd probably screw up the anime storyline... or whatever you want to call what Slayers has. And light novel/novel - I really don't see much of a difference here, and I don't really care. All I know is that said series was based off a book series in Japan. Like Moribito - was that a light novel series that had the pictures removed and redrawn for an American release, or were the illustrations added for the US only release? All I know is it was apparently a book series for YA in Japan, like most light novels seem to be, but then we get the "Adult" light novels and I don't see what makes them any less book-like than any other novel series. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I think you can add the Allison and Lilla books, from what I've heard all of those were covered in the anime and Legend of the Legendary Heroes anime also covered all of the first novel series. Not sure if Trinity Blood counts though, the anime did cover everything written but apparently when the author died he left behind some notes for another book (fingers crossed that the manga manages to use that stuff). I've also read the Spice and Wolf novels (YP translation) and seen the anime and I thought the anime was pretty faithful to the novels, although a lot of the Moribito anime was filler but still in the spirit of the novels (if that makes any sense). Most of Baccano was fairly faithful (except for the Drugs and Dominos arc if you're going to be fussy), Durarara has been pretty faithful (it even had stuff added in that was cut from the original novel), Earl and Fairy was pretty faithful as well so, as far as I can tell, when a story is adapted from either a manga or a LN the anime producers try to leave as much of the story intact as possible, not quite sure where you're coming from. |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Apparently we have different definitions of what faithful adaptions are. I can go all about with the different examples you put in there, but since it's still fresh in my mind, we'll focus on Moribito. First, I LOVED the book. I also very much liked the anime, but the anime did NOT follow the book. Episodes 3-5 pretty much spell it out in how the book and anime are different, and that's not even beginning to touch upon the the additions/filler. All those tons of anime episodes you're referring to as filler - I agree in a sense it is, but that's mainly all Moribito's anime was. They put a lot of character development with Chagum and Balsa that were nowhere in the book. It was nice, I liked it, but you cannot call it faithful to the book. In the spirit, maybe but it wasn't accurate. But let's push those filler episodes aside (if the anime were to have followed the first Moribito book, the anime shouldn't have been more than 6-8 episodes long while we're at it). The anime changed a LOT. Whole characters were excluded (Shuga's rival star reader for one who was originally the guy who watched over Chagum and informed others of his being possessed by a demon), and then serious details were changed, like Balsa's whole background and her oath, and most annoyingly for me the Yakoo; I remember distinctly the book described all Yakoo as dark skinned and looked down upon by the Mikado and immigrants as savages in a rather racist way. Sure there was a lot of inbreeding at times, but to be a Yakoo had a lot more political meaning in the book. And that brings us to the politics. Right off the back in the book, politics were playing a hand. The rival Star Reader I mentioned earlier, the Master Star Reader covering up everything about Chagum because it's what he believed was best for the country - not to mention the sexism involved with the Star Reader's opinions of women and Torogai, and just about everything to do with the Mikado and their relationship with the Yakoo - all those politics were pretty much removed from the anime. Forward the first couple chapters of the book - first 3 or so episodes of the anime and we go to Torogai's first introduction to Chagum and the egg. They all kept referring to it as a demon when from the beginnig Torogai knew it wasn't a demon, but a water spirit. But for some reason the anime turned it all the way around. In the book Torogai went into a big long story about what really happened 200 years previous and with the previous guardians of the spirit. That for politics that befitted the Mikado it was all covered up - but Yakoo always knew the truth. That bit sort of pops up later in the anime, but the anime changed things by continuing to refer to the egg as a demon egg, and that IF it were to be born, and IF Chagum were to live, a drought would be brought and that all the lives that would from there suffer from the drought would be on Balsa's shoulders. <----- This did NOT happen, and it changes things DRASTICALLY from the book. Motivations are changed, suddenly it's Balsa and Chagum against the world when before in the book it was more a story parallel to that of Princess Mononoke in terms of ancient nature, and old ways competing with modernism with Yakoo pretty much protecting the two as much as they could. I can go on and continue to point out every change from the anime to the book, but as a fan of both I thing those points are enough (though things continue especially with the Egg eater and changing the time of the egg's birth from Summer Solstice to Spring). The Moribito anime is NOT a faithful adaption of the book. In spirit, perhaps, it's got the same soul vaguely, but I feel a lot of the original messages were left out and well, it's almost as bad as the adaption of Le Guin's Earthsea books Sci-Fi tried a couple years back (I say this because like that Earthsea adaption, major characters of a minority in Moribito were "whitewashed" - I don't know what you would call the pure-bred Japanese equivalent of this). The Moribito anime takes out all the original philosophy and politics that are in ways relevant to Japan of today, and makes the story a happier, cleaner, more "traditional imperial" Japan story. For all the additional episodes and changes they made to the original story, they could have animated volumes 2-3 of the whole bookseries (there's a total of 8 books). But some of the changes, particularly the politics, made it a bit too difficult to continue from where the anime left off. |
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ss-hikaru
 Posts: 269 Location: Western Australia |
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Oh my poonk...we seem to have a lot in common when it comes to j-music!
I myself actually only started buying CD's less than a year ago. And I now own a pretty sizeable collection of (basically all) Japanese CDs. CD so is not dead!
I...actually do exactly the same thing as you here =D
I too love my CDs and manga and boxsetted anime. And we are definitely not the only ones who like 'old school' (especially when it comes to manga).
To clarify, I only ignore b-sides and instrumentals of j-pop artists. I love my j-rock singles (I always buy the version with the extra song). And I too, am not a fan of iTunes =D. On Yesasia, I find I'm more partial to CDJapan because they have a super cool rewards program which basically covers my shipping cost and give you the external bonuses too! (They have lots of merchandise for ongoing anime series too yay!) |
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